If there is a lesson to be learned it is that waste management
success is first about good management. This is a fine
demonstration of just that. It also informs that there is no excuse
for doing less. What is most intriguing is that focusing on the
vegetable waste nicely eliminates the deleterious effects of land
fills generally while producing a useful byproduct.
Starting with vegetable wastes is actually a good idea simply because
it makes it easier for the private sector to reduce the remainder for
recycling. It also makes it easier for the municipality to operate
a picking line to sort the waste stream they collect.
It will never be totally perfect but this is already a long ways away
from the general landfill solution which has become unsustainable
because of modern toxins.
Vegetable Waste to
Zero Waste in La Pinata, Chile
Sunday, 09 December
2012 07:22By Cecilia Allen and Global Alliance for
Incinerator Alternatives,
“Environmental
Possibilities: Zero Waste” features new ways of thinking, acting,
and shaping government policy that are circling the globe. Each week,
we highlight a success story in the zero waste movement, excerpted
from the report On the Road to Zero Waste: Successes and Lessons
from Around the World by the Global Alliance for
Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). GAIA is a powerful worldwide
alliance of more than 650 grassroots groups, non-governmental
organizations, and individuals in over 90 countries. Their collective
goal is a just, toxic-free world without incineration. Other Worlds
is excited to promote the work of GAIA and the organized communities
it works with, and hopes that the stories inspire you and others to
begin moving your home, town or city, nation, and planet toward zero
waste.
The Chilean
community of La Pintana has found that recycling the largest segment
of their waste – fruits, vegetables, and yard clippings – can
save them money, produce valuable compost, and reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. The program cost very little to initiate and is
already making a substantial contribution to the community’s
financial and environmental sustainability.
Despite belonging to
the national capital region, La Pintana is one of the poorest
communities in Chile, and 80 percent of the environmental agency’s
budget is allocated to the collection and disposal of solid waste.
While other governments might see this as an obstacle to the
incorporation of waste prevention and resource recovery strategies,
La Pintana focused on making better use of its available resources.
The head of Dirección
de Gestión Ambiental (Environmental Management Agency) of La Pintana
explained the municipality’s decision to take a new approach to
waste management with the adage, “Insanity is doing the same
thing over and over, expecting to achieve different results.”
Recognizing, as well, the importance of continuing that which is
working well, the La Pintana commune identified all the actors
involved in waste management (e.g., businesses, formal and informal
recyclers, citizens, government bodies) and their different levels of
responsibility in waste generation. The municipality understands that
discarded materials are resources, and as a result, waste is viewed
as an opportunity, not as a problem to get rid of. The municipality
also understands that the solutions need to be local; the further
waste travels from the point of generation, the bigger a problem it
becomes, and the more likely its management will be unsustainable.
Separation and
Collection
In December of 2005
the municipality launched its new program. Unlike many materials
recovery strategies adopted in Latin America, this one did not focus
on recycling dry materials, but on recovering vegetable waste. This
decision was fundamental, since vegetable waste is the largest waste
stream, the one that makes recovery of recyclables more difficult,
and the one that creates greenhouse gas emissions and contaminants in
landfills. The program was built upon existing infrastructure and
local financial resources. It has been steadily growing since its
launch, and while it still has only modest participation rates, there
is an ongoing effort to increase participation whenever the budget
allows for more public education campaigns.
The government
provides 35-liter bins to residents for vegetable waste. People
are asked only to separate out fruits and vegetables for collection
and composting—not meat or dairy products, although some end up
being mixed in anyway. The consumption of meat in this poor commune
is very low, however, so there is little animal product waste.
The system for
collecting separated waste was organized by simply rescheduling
existing routes. Consequently, neither the costs nor the number of
trucks increased. One third of the city is serviced by the
municipality, and the rest by a private company; both collect two
waste streams: vegetable and other.
The municipality
conducts a communication campaign with residents in door-to-door
visits. During the visits and in the ongoing workshops held by the
government, source separation is emphasized. Both direct and indirect
incentives to separate waste are provided. Citizens receive free
compost, and their neighborhoods are improved with the construction
of public parks, planting of new trees, maintenance of sports clubs,
etc., that improve their quality of life and their relationship with
the environment.
So far, almost 80
percent of the households have been visited, although it is estimated
that overall only 28 percent of the households are separating their
vegetable waste. According to the municipality, the low participation
rate is the consequence of some bad experiences with the collection
service (e.g., trucks that did not meet the schedule) and a lack of
space to keep two bins in multi-story buildings. Whenever it has the
funds available, the municipality undertakes new communication
campaigns to increase participation rates.
The Informal Sector
While the government
is focused on recovering vegetable waste, a portion of dry
materials is recovered through two channels. One is through “green
points” built by the municipality, where non-profits place
containers for people to drop off glass, plastics, and Tetra Pak
containers. The non-profits manage the green points and keep the
income from the sale of the materials. The other channel is
through informal recyclers. The leaflets that the government hands
out to encourage source separation also ask citizens to separate
paper and metals and give them to informal recyclers. The informal
recyclers collect these materials directly from households and then
sell them for recycling.
Although the
municipality does confer a degree of recognition upon the informal
recyclers, it has also blocked their efforts to organize, and they
still work in precarious conditions. The government’s perspective
is that the municipality is willing to encourage people to hand
recyclables to the recyclers but that it is ultimately a private
business, so the informal recyclers need to develop and maintain
their business on their own. The full inclusion of the informal
sector in the formal waste management system—with payment for their
service and the rights and protections of any formal worker—remains
a challenge.
Recovery and Treatment
Once collected, the
source separated vegetable waste is transported to a 7,500
m2 treatment plant located within the commune. The site includes
a large compost site that handles 18 tons of vegetable waste per day,
and a vermiculture area that treats between 18 and 20 more tons per
day. Total input in this plant, including vegetable waste from
households and street markets as well as yard trimmings, is 36-38
tons per day. The waste arrives very well separated, with only 0.04
percent of impurities (mostly plastic bags that some people still use
in the containers). Four people work at the site, each earning a
monthly salary of about US $600, which is above minimum wage and
comparable to other similar jobs. The 2011 annual budget for
maintenance and operations was US $31,000.
Initial investments in
the program were low; the original treatment plant consisted of a
small compost pile and some worms. As the program has grown over
time, more piles have been added to the plant and the worms have been
reproducing naturally. Total recovery of source-separated vegetable
waste, including residential waste, yard trimmings from maintenance
of green areas, and vegetable waste from street markets is 20.5
percent of all the waste collected in La Pintana.
In addition, about
1,000 liters of used kitchen oil are recovered daily, which are
turned into biodiesel fuel for municipal collection trucks and
grinders that make woodchips to use as mulch. Construction and
demolition waste is managed privately by the producers. Thus, the
municipal investment is confined to recovering vegetable waste and
disposing of residuals.
Despite being a very
poor community, La Pintana shows that a good analysis of the local
situation, the setting of clear goals, and an efficient use of
resources allow municipalities to do more than just put waste
materials in landfills. By focusing on the largest and most
problematic waste stream—organic materials—the community has
reduced environmental and economic damage and used recovered
materials to improve the local environment.
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